Devastated

by EM BROWN

  Leaning back in his chair, Ben closed his eyes to slow the swirl of thoughts and emotions. Bumping into Kimani had kicked up a sandstorm of conflicting desires.

  It had not been an easy weekend.

  After deciding he was going to The Lair, he had told Eumie he was going to put her up at a hotel or, if she wanted, he would fly her back to Hong Kong.

  She had not received it well.

  “What’s the matter with you men?” she’d asked while she threw her things into her suitcase. “I thought we had a nice arrangement, but too much sex and you freak out that we’re in a relationship?”

  He didn’t say anything. It was better she believed that than the real reason he didn’t want her around anymore.

  But even if she wasn’t especially astute, she had a woman’s intuition.

  “Or is it someone else?” she had realized, narrowing her eyes at him. “You planning to go pussy-hopping?”

  “None of your business if I did,” he replied.

  “Who is she? Don’t tell me it’s that black girl I saw you talking to today? Does your father know you’re banging a black person?”

  “I don’t care what my father does or doesn’t know.”

  She had given him a look of disgust, and he’d left her to finish packing on her own.

  He hadn’t planned on having sex with Kimani when he’d arrived at The Lair, but he’d known he wanted to. The thought of her submitting to another man was too much.

  She. Was. His.

  The sex hadn’t satiated him at all. He wanted more. He wanted to keep her.

  When he had stopped her from leaving at first, he had been tempted to say something to that effect. But the moment had passed, and he had allowed it to. He didn’t want to be rash. While pounding into her had been cathartic and diffused his anger, it had only amplified his desire for her. And knowing, seeing, smelling, hearing her responding to him, wanting him as much as he wanted her, was the headiest aphrodisiac.

  I want to fuck you.

  While he had insisted on being the one doing the fucking, no words had ever sounded hotter or sexier. There was so much more he wanted to do to her. If he’d had the whole week with her that he’d paid for...it still wouldn’t have been enough.

  The desk phone beeped, indicating he had a new voicemail message. Opening his eyes, he glanced at the screen to see the transcription. The dean had tickets to an upcoming Stanford football game, 50-yard line, and was offering them to Ben, whom he was soliciting for an endowment for a new faculty position.

  Ben immediately thought of Kimani. She hadn’t mentioned if she liked football, but he imagined she might, imagined how her eyes might light up if he invited her to the game.

  It would be a date. Though their evening at Ishikawa West had looked like a date, they had had to have dinner somewhere, so why not a Michelin three-star restaurant? But a football game would say something different.

  Picking up the phone, he decided to call the dean back to accept the tickets.

  SEVERAL DAYS PASSED and Ben hadn’t heard from Kimani. He knew she wasn’t the sort to play games, the kind that Eumie would, the I’m-going-to-wait-until-he-calls-me-first-so-it-feels-like-I’m-hard-to-get moves that made dating feel like a game of chess.

  Fuck chess.

  “Women play those types of games because they work,” May had explained to him once. “Not all the time. But enough times that they’ve lasted the centuries. Besides, men play similar games in the realm of business and politics.”

  But Ben usually just took what he wanted, and he didn’t like to do business with people who played coy. With Kimani, he sure as hell knew what he wanted—her, pinned beneath him a million different ways.

  He hadn’t reached out to her, however, because it seemed, based on her haste to leave that night at The Lair, that she needed some space. Probably to convince herself that being his fucktoy was far from wise. But if that was her conclusion, he wasn’t worried. He’d have her wet and whimpering again.

  From Bill, Ben found out that Kimani was headed to the campaign headquarters. After having had to clean out her desk earlier in the week, Ben suspected she would need a little cheering up, and he hoped the pair of football tickets might do it.

  “I’ll take those precincts,” she was saying to Anthony, pointing to the folders for the area of Lockwood Gardens.

  Anthony, spotting Ben standing behind her, hesitated and responded, “I have some other precincts that could use a second pass.”

  “Has Lockwood Gardens even had a first pass?”

  “No, but it wouldn’t be wise to walk these precincts alone, and I don’t know that we have a volunteer who can go with you right now.”

  “I’ll find a friend.”

  Anthony furrowed his brow. “I don’t know...”

  Irritated that Anthony wasn’t able to put down his foot harder, Ben stepped in. “You have a death wish?” he asked Kimani.

  Not realizing he had been behind her, she jumped back in surprise. She was casually dressed in a zip-up hoodie and shorts. She looked so hot, he wanted to rip the clothes off and take her right there.

  “Excuse me?” she returned.

  “I said you’re done walking East Oakland,” he replied.

  “There are other East Oakland neighborhoods, not the flats, of course—” Anthony began, till Ben gave him a cutting look.

  “Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll take whatever you want to give me.”

  Relieved, Anthony handed her a set of folders and the doorhangers. She received them and headed out. Ben followed.

  “Don’t get any ideas about using those doorhangers in Lockwood Gardens,” he said.

  She flushed with guilt and pressed her lips together in an unhappy line. She turned to face him. “What do you want?”

  To devastate you.

  His gaze spoke the words, and she seemed to find it difficult to swallow. They could have spent a while staring at each other, but he released her from his stare to call Bataar to bring the car around.

  “Are you planning to walk now?” he asked her.

  “I was.”

  “Then I’ll give you a lift.”

  She hesitated, but there was no reason on the surface for her not to accept his offer. They got in the backseat of his Porsche. Of course, all he wanted to do was reach over and molest her, but he behaved. He knew she got self-conscious with Bataar around. Which made it all the more fun to try to get her aroused, but he decided not to torment her...for the moment.

  “You can drop me off here,” she said to Bataar, indicating the intersection of two streets on the map in her folder.

  Anthony had given her a precinct in the hills of East Oakland of solid working-class neighborhoods. Bataar parked in front of a row of shoebox homes built in the ’50s. Ben noticed a black Honda pull up on the cross street. Probably Bill.

  Kimani hopped out, looking relieved to be out of the car. Her relief was short-lived when she saw that he had gotten out as well. Overdressed for the occasion, he removed his jacket and placed it in the backseat. He saw Kimani’s gaze sweep over his short-sleeve shirt, fitted enough to hint at the muscles beneath.

  He held out his hand. “Give me the other side of the street.”

  “You’re walking, too?” she asked.

  “Why not? The candidate is my uncle.”

  Despite that fact, he had not walked a precinct yet. His focus had been to raise money for the campaign.

  She handed him the voter list with the odd-numbered houses while she kept the list with the even numbers. She then handed him some doorhangers.

  “I’m guessing we’re supposed to talk to the voters who haven’t been identified as voting for Gordon or the other candidates,” she explained, looking over the lists. She laid out a plan for how they could cover the precinct with minimal overlap of walking.

  It was the perfect day for precinct walking. Sunny but not overly warm. It was hard to beat autumn weather in the Bay Area, especially in the East Bay, which tend
ed to be sunnier and warmer than the city.

  Ben would have preferred to walk with Kimani, but this was about helping Uncle Gordon. However, he found he enjoyed looking at her from across the street, seeing her smile as she greeted a resident and hearing her enthusiasm as she talked about why Gordon would make a great mayor.

  “I’ll have Bataar bring us some lunch,” he said to her after they had been walking for two hours. “What would you like?”

  “Whatever you feel like getting,” she replied.

  She sounded cheerful and relaxed, perhaps feeling safe that he wouldn’t try anything in broad daylight. She was wrong, of course, but he liked her current mood too much to mess with it. For now.

  After walking another hour, they took a break for lunch. Bataar had returned with Korean rice bowls. They sat down on the sidewalk. Bataar had already eaten and chose to sit in the car.

  “What is this?” Kimani asked, poking at the cabbage with red sauce with her chopsticks. She had gone back to her old way of holding the utensil.

  “Kimchi,” he answered. “It’s an amazing food. Full of probiotics.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Are you going to make me eat it?”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he replied as he tried to focus on the food.

  She flushed, and clearly decided it was best she took the initiative to try the kimchi.

  “Okay, not great, but not bad,” she deemed. “Crunchy and soggy at the same time. I like that it’s spicy.”

  And he liked that she wasn’t completely adverse to trying new things, including the raw egg that he’d had for breakfast their first morning at his place in Pacific Heights. Eumie would have rolled her eyes and gagged at the thought.

  Noticing that she struggled with scooping up the rice with her chopsticks, he wrapped an arm around her and placed his hand on hers to show her a better grip.

  “Anchor the bottom stick so that it doesn’t move,” he explained. “You’ll get much better leverage that way.”

  Her fingers slipped, sending grains of rice flying into his face.

  “Jesus, I’m sorry,” she giggled.

  He stared at her. Her smile. The brightness of her eyes. Her laugh.

  I want to fuck you so bad right now.

  She seemed to know his thoughts, and tried to dispel the mood by asking, “How long did it take you to get the hang of using chopsticks?”

  “Hard to say,” he answered, picking the rice off his shirt. “I’ve probably been using them since I was two years old.”

  She brightened. “I wonder what you were like at two years old?”

  “Difficult. My older sister wasn’t too keen on me. She said I was always pulling her hair, and my mother said I cried a lot. Supposedly she tried to work from home but couldn’t get anything done.”

  “What does your mom do?”

  “She’s a professor of economics.”

  “You come from an accomplished family.”

  “Which is good and bad. It’s what I rebelled against as a kid.”

  “So how come you got it together?”

  Ben leaned back on his arms and thought. “I grew up. And my time at Howard made a difference. As a freshman, I used to get into the most heated debates. I was advantaged but didn’t see myself as that different. But learning the history of a people repressed for centuries in the worst ways made me grateful for what I have. And Uncle Gordon. During my time at college, he was basically a father to me.”

  He looked over at her. “And what was two-year-old Kimani like?”

  “Also difficult. My mother said I was constantly trying to climb things, and I liked to throw things. Just for fun.”

  She flicked her chopsticks, and more rice came his way.

  “You did that on purpose,” he said.

  She returned a guilty smile, but her smile turned into a gasp when he pulled her by the neck toward him. His mouth brushed against her curls as he said into her ear, “Keep that up, and I’ll do you right here against the car.”

  “Families with kids live in these houses,” she hissed.

  “Then I’ll throw you in the backseat of the car.”

  Her lashes fluttered, and despite the tenseness in her body, the pupils in her eyes had dilated. His gaze fell to her lips. He knew what he really wanted for lunch. And the vision of her squirming beneath him in the confines of the car was very, very appealing.

  He took her mouth. Not in the bruising way he had in the Silk Room. This kiss was about savoring. He tasted the suppleness of her lips, the heat of her mouth, the texture of her tongue. Different emotions flavored this kiss, though he knew it wouldn’t be long before more primal, visceral urges took over.

  She put her hand on his wrist and—reluctantly, it seemed—pulled away.

  “We should finish the precinct,” she said, breathlessly.

  He could wipe away her resistance with another demanding kiss, he was sure of it. But he needed to show her—and himself—that he possessed control. He would behave.

  For now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  When they arrived back at the campaign headquarters, Ben went to talk with his uncle and aunt. Since Kimani hadn’t yet had a chance to replace her stolen laptop, she sat at one of the computers in the headquarters to print out more flyers for the Havenscourt basketball event. She had secured a nonprofit partner, East Oakland Kids, that would accept the funds raised and spearhead the improvements to the basketball courts.

  “Hi,” a sultry voice behind her said. “We didn’t get to meet the other day.”

  Turning around, Kimani found herself staring at a stunning statuesque woman of Chinese descent, supremely slender except for her breasts, which were pushed by her underwire bra into a significant cleavage above a scoop neck top. Kimani instantly remembered her. The woman had been in the company of Alice Lee, and Kimani had picked up a connection between her and Ben—a connection that suggested the two weren’t just friends.

  “You left rather suddenly,” the woman said, arching perfectly tweezed brows.

  Kimani got to her feet and held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Kimani Taylor.”

  “Eu-meh Ma. But you can call me Eumie. I’m the other woman that Ben’s banging.”

  Taken aback, Kimani didn’t know what to say at first. “...Excuse me?”

  Eumie tossed her long black hair to the side. “That Benjamin Lee. He’s such a manwhore, isn’t he?”

  “Is he?”

  “Sometimes I wonder why we put up with him? I bet he has a white girl, maybe even a Mexican girl he’s banging, too.” Eumie shivered as if a plate of creepy crawlers had been placed before her for breakfast. “Like he’s the fucking United Nations with sex.”

  The wiser part of Kimani told her she should just cut the conversation short, but the emotional part of her wouldn’t let her leave. Like driving by a traffic accident, she couldn’t resist sparing a glance. Did this woman have a purpose in initiating this conversation or was she just making small talk and usually this candid?

  “But, you know, he’s not even that great sometimes,” Eumie continued. “The other night, he just gave up and took the easy way out by making me use a vibrator. Maybe he’s getting old and losing his stamina.”

  Okay, now is a good time to exit the conversation.

  “I’m sorry to have to be short—it was nice meeting you—but I should get these flyers printed,” Kimani said, hitting the print button and heading over to the printer.

  Eumie followed her. “Oh, are you working for Uncle Gordon?”

  “I’m a volunteer. Are you family?”

  “Alice Lee is a cousin of mine. Ben suggested I come and visit her and Gordon. When he invited me to fly out here with him, I thought, why not? I haven’t seen Alice in a long time.”

  Kimani couldn’t stop a small pit from opening in her stomach. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that Ben was sleeping around. What she had with Ben didn’t qualify as a relationship. But somehow it had felt different when they were precinct
walking together in East Oakland.

  She gave a silent sigh. Maybe it had been her imagination.

  “Although I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea at first,” Eumie said. “I thought he might want to get back together again since we used to date, but I did not want to revive our old relationship. He was so bossy and possessive. The worst boyfriend material. So I’m very relieved to find he’s screwing someone else at the same time.”

  Was she? Kimani thought she heard a hint of sarcasm.

  “Because I’m focused on my modeling career. What is it that you do?”

  “I’m a news reporter,” Kimani answered. “For the San Francisco Tribune. Or, I was.”

  “Oh, is that the thing that Ben recently bought?”

  The small pit in her stomach suddenly opened into a chasm. “What?”

  “How funny...I overhead him talking to his attorney or someone like that about shutting down a paper with the word Tribune in it. But I was in Ben’s shower, so I didn’t catch everything that was said. So is it just a coincidence that he’s having sex with you?”

  Kimani looked past Eumie to Gordon’s office. Ben was still talking to his uncle and aunt, but, as if he sensed that she was looking his way, he turned. He stiffened. Most likely because he had noticed Eumie. It was probably a guy’s worst nightmare to find his ex-girlfriends talking together. No, Eumie was the only ex-girlfriend.

  I’m just a fucktoy. A fucktoy he put out of a job.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ben didn’t need to hear what Eumie said to know that it wasn’t good. Excusing himself, he exited Gordon’s office and made straight for Eumie and Kimani. The look on Kimani’s face confirmed his suspicions. What the hell had Eumie said?

  “Oh, hi, Benji,” Eumie greeted when she heard him behind her. She turned back to Kimani. “Do you call him Benji, too, or does he have a different pet name with you?”

  Kimani’s frown deepened.

  “Eumie,” he said in a tone one would use with a wayward child.

  “Kim-hani and I were just exchanging notes,” she replied with a devilish grin.

  He looked to Kimani, who stared at him with more intensity than he had ever seen from her.